KING LEAR Week 1: “The Fragility of Authority and Family Bonds” – Shakespeare – Act 2, Scene 4 – The Rehearsal Room [Video, Audio, and Transcript versions]

KING LEAR Week 1 – “The Fragility of Authority and Family Bonds” – Shakespeare – Act 2, Scene 4 – The Rehearsal Room

Nathan Agin: I think we are all met and so we can get started. And I’ll do just some quick introductions and housekeeping. But really the point is to turn it over to all of you guys and get to work and have some fun. Part of what I want to do is just have everybody go around and introduce themselves because some may have worked together, may have not. May have seen or heard or whatever. So this would be a good chance for everybody to just say a quick, introduction of, you know, your career and you know, 50 words or less if, you know, because that, because it could go on all day if, we let everybody talking about everything they’ve done and maybe, you know, if you have any connections with the Tingle, particularly First Folio work. I think that would be interesting. And, you know, Annie has outlined what she’d like to cover today and over the next few weeks. but, I. I’ve met Thomas now, but for everybody else, who does know me, but for those watching, so I’m Nathan and I helped kind of create this and produce this. And it’s been a lot of fun to continue to get back to this and have all these scenes worked on by all these great people. So for those watching, you’re. You’re in for a treat, another treat. And one of the things I want to start doing is we do have a few people supporting this. And right now it’s kind of the. The production costs of all that. So I just want to quickly go through the names. We have Danielle and Ivar and Christian and Jim and Joan and Kevin and Magdalene and Michelle. Thank you. So for your support making. Making this happen. And and yes, we welcome. Welcome more support as. Because we want to grow this and make it big and huge and profitable for everybody. So, yes, I think. I think that’s it for me. One question.

Lizzie King-Hall: Annie.

Nathan Agin: I did kind of late today email you a question that Ivar had. So you have that you can bring that up at any point that you think is. Is relevant to the discussion. and I’ll turn it over to Annie and Randall and we can just. Introductions.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Great. Why don’t I just start. I think that the thing that I would most like you to know, and if you don’t know already, is that Randy and I have worked together for going on 53 years. We founded our own theater, company called the American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin. But I think more importantly, we shared, I’ll just tell you quickly that Randy was my makeup teacher in college. And we found that we shared a Great love for Shakespeare. And we would spend hours at night on the phone discussing the plays. And, and then eventually began to work. He actually had me cut class. We would go over to a little Chinese restaurant and eat while everybody else was doing makeup, and we shared ideas. We worked for 10 years on developing our own theater. He had worked at so many regional theaters around the country. I had the great privilege, and I wish other people had this opportunity, but I was allowed to sit in on every rehearsal and every performance of every production he was part of. And that gave me access to every regional theater in this country. And I learned something that’s never taught in schools. I learned how to listen. And then we developed a way of working together that I would sit in the audience, and after the show, I would feed back to Randy and say to him, this is what I saw, this is what I heard. And he would either say to me, I wasn’t going for that at all. And then, I, would help him develop his characters, and we would start to examine the plays with that perspective. And that way he never really had to watch himself act. He always had eyes in the audience. And we felt that when we had our own theater, we would try to extend that. So what I bring to the table is not. I’m not a conceptual director. I don’t put my stamp on the, play. What I do is try to understand. I’ll do. We study. For instance, we studied Hamlet for 14 years before we actually did our own production. So I learned the plays by heart. And there are times when I direct. I know them by heart. I don’t have. Have to look down at a book. And so I’m a resource, and I can feed back because I believe theater is about the play and the actor. And as a director, I want to guide that play, those actors in that play. So that’s sort of the, the process. And then, Randy, I should turn it over to you, because I think you can fill in the rest of our life and your own.

Randall Duk Kim: Well, just. Just for me, this material, particularly Shakespeare, since I was born speaking the English language. It’s my mother tongue. That of all the writers that have written for the theater, he wrote in English and is considered the greatest that the world has ever seen. As far as plays and playwriting. I mean, for a man to come up with tragedies and comedies

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Randall Duk Kim: and histories and romances is outstanding. It’s unheard of in any writer. but his use of the English language was and continues to be of the highest order. I call It. Soul food. What he gives to actors is soul food. Food for the soul. Not just challenges for acting. But how do you. How do you get to the depths of characters that he’s created? And he certainly created a host of them.

Randall: He.

Randall Duk Kim: He created over a thousand characters, you know, let alone multiple stories. So it’s been. It’s an honor, ever. An honor, to work with his material. That’s what I find. And it feeds. It feeds the deepest part of my being whenever I come into contact with what’s required of me, you know, in. In order for these characters to live and breathe and, you know, be in the world for a brief moment.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Randy, just a moment. About Morrison directing you as King Lear, since King Lear is what we’re going to focus on.

Randall Duk Kim: Well, I had seen Morris Duke Shylock, when I was 18 years old, and that. That changed my life. I had previously seen productions of Hamlet and Oedipus Rex, a few years earlier, and that was a lot. Those were life changers. But to see this man be inhabited by a character was a knockout. This was not just an actor performing the role. This was an actor who permitted that character to live and breathe within him for the time that he was on stage. And I said to myself, damn, Kim, you want to be an actor who. Well, you just found yourself the model, the kind of actor you gotta strive to be. You must, I don’t know, find every means possible to become that kind of actor where the character can live in, you can use your voice, can use your body, but where you serve as the bridge between an imaginary world and the world of flesh and blood, you know, so he put me on the path. He showed me a light, and I knocked me out. His Shylock. I had. I was a poor student, had just a few shekels in my pocket. But with what shekels I had left, I bought tickets to see the show again. You know, I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe my eyes, my ears. My whole being was. Was moved by what I saw.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Randy. King Lear, too. That’s what I want you to talk about.

Randall Duk Kim: At any rate, years and years later, we had a chance to invite Morris and his wife Phoebe to come out to our theater to direct us in the plays. The first play they directed was an early Chekhov play, Ivanov. because we were doing the plays in chronological order of composition in order to understand Chekhov, we were doing that, and they consented to do Ivanov. And then about two years later, we again asked them to, to come out and direct our Production of King Lear, which he did. Besides Shylock, Morris was also noted in the 60s for his king Lear, which he took around the country. He toured in it. M. so his vision of it was, you know, his own. What I did.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You know, he’s being very modest. But let me just add to it that it was to see these what I would call titans in the American classical theater. Seeing one pass on his Lear to the other was quite exceptional. and I think that. I hope that what we get out of our work with you is some of what we learned from him. Because I think, Randy, your King Lear today is definitely influenced by what. What he gave you and then what you brought to it yourself.

Randall Duk Kim: That’s right. That’s right. what I did and I made every effort to do was to almost imitate him whenever he gave me a line reading. Not to take offense, but to find out where that reading of the line took me emotionally, you know. So I tried it out, which is an old Kabuki way of training, you know, imitating the masters until you learn what it’s about and why that choice was made and, you know, how it moves and what the music sounds like. So I did that in working with Morris, tried to imitate and discover what did it do to me on the inside. but now, of course, some of that has fallen away. And I found my own way to

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Randall Duk Kim: the line or the moment in the play. So it’s a combination. What I have now is a combination of Morris, myself. And there you have it, a hybrid.

Nathan Agin: And I just want to interject. That story never gets old. I’ve heard it a few times. It’s still exciting to hear you explain, that Randy, probably subconsciously hearing that story may have been one of the genesis or genesis of this project of having a space where actors have the time to really explore something and see people who have been doing it for decades. How do they work? What questions are they bringing up so that the next generation or the next couple of generations of actors can really learn through that process that had been around for, you know, hundreds of years, but just has fallen off because things have gotten so time compressed these days. And so the fact that we can create that. That kind of space on even a small level, is very exciting as an observer. And it seems like a lot of the participants have enjoyed that.

Tom Farber: But,

Nathan Agin: But, yeah, this used to be a craft that really was kind of passed down. And the younger repertory actors would just be sitting or waiting in the wings. And how do they do this? And so, yes, I mean, I want to say that probably in some part of my brain, I was remembering your experience with Morris and Phoebe that, like, yeah, we got to be able to do this. There must be a way we can do this, even on a small scale. So.

Randall Duk Kim: I think that’s what’s missing, Nathan. You know, I wish we had our craft, had that idea of apprenticeship, younger actors working with older actors passing. But we don’t have that structure. We have schools maybe, you know, or actors just get out there into the marketplace and try it on their own. But it’s nothing like in, the Elizabethan theater. A kid would work from the time he’s a boy till the time he’s an adult with the master actor who would try to teach him and share everything that he knew about the craft, you know?

Nathan Agin: Yeah. And it’s. It’s even, you know, morphed, you know, a couple. As you see the last week or a couple of weeks, someone an actor watching started asking about auditions and self tapes. And you have people who’ve been, you know, in their 40s or 50s who are doing this, and they have that knowledge they can pass on. So even if it isn’t the text approach or character work, there are still all these other skills that actors who have just been doing this for years can. Can share and pass on.

Randall Duk Kim: So.

Nathan Agin: So, yeah, I totally agree. And we could. We could probably spend two hours just talking about all this stuff, but. But, But no, it’s. It’s great. So thank you guys so much.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And it’s a great segue to Thomas, who we would consider one of our apprentices. So, Thomas, you want to introduce yourself and.

Randall Duk Kim: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Hi.

Tom Farber: Hi, everyone. My name is Tom Farber. I’ve been. I kind of started acting on a whim when I was, like, 15 years old. Just auditioned for my high school play, found out that, hey, this is something that I take that I take in stride, and decided to make it into a career. And then kind of repeating history. I met Randy and Annie and saw Randy perform, and I was like, well, if I’m gonna be an actor, that’s where I have to go for my acting. I met at sedentary as a student when I was, like, 19 years old, first with a, Merchant of Venice and a, Merchant of Venice intensive. And then the next semester, I took their King Lear intensive and found myself falling in love, especially with the character of Lear’s fool. And I’ve been working with Randy and Annie and really trying to get a great understanding of how to perform the character. How to perform the character, what his role is within the story and everything else. So, yeah, that’s what I have to say about myself.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Great.

Nathan Agin: Thank you for being here, Tom. Really thrilled to have you join us.

Tom Farber: Glad to be here.

Nathan Agin: Jeanne. Wonderful, to see you again. It’s been a little bit of time, but Jeanne, do you want to go next? Introduce yourself a little bit? Oh, you’re just, you’re still, you’re still, muted there. We can see how excited you are. We just want to be able to hear it.

Jeanne Sakata: Good to see you. Nathan, good to meet you, all. Randy, good to see you again.

Randall Duk Kim: Great to see you.

Jeanne Sakata: Know, we’re in, a group, the Performing Arts Legacy together, where we create a, A, website of our career. And Rand, I, have to tell you, you’re in. Your website is gorgeous. And I’ve gotten so much inspiration from, from looking at it. Thank you so much. And I, I told

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Jeanne Sakata: this story in the group, which is when I was first starting out as an actor, I had a stage makeup book and I opened it up and I said, oh my God, there’s an Asian American actor in this book. And he’s doing like all these great classical roles. And so he provided inspiration many, many years ago when I was just starting out as an actor, I started quite late. I was on my way to, studying library, ah. And information science. And I saw. Oh, sorry. And I think my husband’s gonna get that. And I saw, a production at UCLA where I was attending of Godspell and my, A friend Melinda Fong was in it. And I was just knocked out. And I had almost literally an out of body experience watching her on stage. I said, I have to do that. I don’t know how to get there or what I have to do, but I have to be on a stage doing what Melinda is doing. It was such a powerful spiritual, experience. And so I started to. I took an acting class in my senior year of ucla and then I found my way to East West Players, where I think you perform too, right? Randall or Chinaman.

Randall: Yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: So I think they did it as players.

Randall: Yeah, yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: And I, I went to a play called and the Soul Shall Dance by Wakako Yamauchi, who is of my mother and father’s generation. It was about this Japanese American farming family in the Imperial Valley and the hardships that they encounter and hardships as immigrants. I. As farmers. And I was really knocked out again because I didn’t know there were plays, about Japanese American farming families like mine. And it was a life changing experience. And I started out at East West Players as an actor and eventually branched out to regional theaters and fast forward years later in the 1990s, I became a playwright when I became obsessed with a story about a young man named Gordon Hirabayashi, who was a University of Washington college student during World War II after Pearl harbor was bombed and the orders came out from the government to mass incarcerate all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. So Gordon was a young student in his early 20s who stood up to these orders and legally challenged them and turned himself into the FBI. And I was so fascinated and enthralled, because I thought it was wrong that I had grown up not knowing there was someone like Gordon because my family had gone through the camp experience. So I sort of turned myself into a playwright about Gordon. And the play that resulted, hold these Truths has gone around the country. We’ve been so blessed. We’ve had over, 20 productions, since 2007 when it premiered at East West Players. So. But one thing I’ve not been able to do, I’m sorry to say, and why I’m so happy to be here today is do more classical theater. I belong to a classical theater company, MTS Company here in Los Angeles, which Nathan has been involved with as well. But the way that my time has worked at it, I just haven’t been able to take part as much as I like. I’ve always loved Shakespeare and I’ve always hoped to do it more, but I, I’ve done a little, but just not nearly enough. And so I’m so happy to be here today, especially with you, Randall, and you Annie, to, to learn and just do it for my soul’s sake. And I love this play, Kingler, so much. As I get older, I see so much more in it than I did of course, when I was younger. And I feel so much for all the characters really. I find as I’m older and I, you know, am experiencing more and more complications with my own family situation. And my father was a farmer and had formed a, a farming company with my uncles. and as that was started by my grandfather, by my immigrant grandfather. And as, you know, time went on and it came from my generation, the third generation American born generation, to inherit what they had built. There were all kinds of conflict, arguments and jealousies and, you know, strategies to sort of outdo. And I saw so much of my family in this play, you know, what was a loving family As I

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Jeanne Sakata: grew up, became much more complicated and much more treacherous in some ways. So I felt that this play has always spoken deeply to me.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Great. Yeah.

Nathan Agin: Thank you so much, Jeanne, for sharing all that. thank you. Yeah. And Lizzie, welcome back. thrilled to see you again.

Lizzie King-Hall: Thank you so much. I’m glad to be back. Randy and Annie. I feel like I don’t have anything to say compared to everyone else. I am a New York experience. Performing Shakespeare goes back about 20 years, starting in graduate school, like everybody. And now I do, I mean, a lot of different. I work, a lot with pretty conceptual companies, lots, of devised choral pieces, physical pieces. Right now, for a year, I’ve been working with a director who’s doing a devised piece of the Charlottesville white supremacist trial. so it’s so refreshing. As much as I love all doing all of that, to get back to discussions like Randy and Annie and gender about just having it between you and the text and not, like the value, not being on making it real, but making it true. and yeah, I mean, for some. Some of us, those. Those Shakespeare opportunities are, fleeting. So I really, yeah. Treasure. Treasure this opportunity like everybody else.

Randall Duk Kim: That’s great to see you.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Thank you. We were so happy to hear you, Both of you. We were so happy to hear that both of you were joining us to tell it. When we. When Nathan told us, we were thrilled because we had. Because we knew Jeannie from, of course, the pal situation. And Lizzie, we had started with Reagan early on, you know, with Nathan. So it’s just great to have you both join us.

Jeanne Sakata: Thank you.

Nathan Agin: Very cool. All right, well, I will pop off. You may see me come and go a little bit. I’ll try to. Try to pop in at the very end, but have I have a wonderful time. and yeah, enjoy. Enjoy the time together.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Great, thanks.

Randall Duk Kim: Thank you, Nathan.

Annie Occhiogrosso: So I. I thought the best way to start is to just. Let’s read that scene that we’re going to do. okay. Just to hear it and, you know, and we’ll open it up after that to any kinds of just technical questions, pronunciate any of that stuff. But. But really what I’d like to do is to remind us that that’s what we’re focusing on, and then go back to some of the earlier scenes for the circumstances that lead up to it and stuff that may impact where people are coming from by time they reach that scene. you know, it’s always so Randy and I like to. When we work scenes we always like to take something from the beginning of the play. But we were so. It’s. So we’re so intrigued with Regan and, Goneril that we wanted to see something with them and Lear other than the very first scene, you know, and so that’s why we moved to a later part of the play. Randy, did you want to say anything? You should also know, because we’ve been together so long, that idea. The idea of who’s the director and who you know, I won’t. I won’t act Lear. That I can guarantee you. But I will tell you that at any given time, Randy will pipe in with, should we call it an opinion. And we’re very. We’re very used to working that way, so. So, Randall, what would you like to say? Anything?

Randall Duk Kim: No, no, no.

Randall: I have nothing to say.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Okay, so then let’s just.

Randall Duk Kim: We can just dive in, thrash around with it. no, no big thing. Just to get a feel of what the scene consists of, you know, just to get a sense of it. And Thomas will read Cornwall.

Jeanne Sakata: And we’re starting with good morrow to you both.

Randall Duk Kim: Yeah. Lear has tried to see Reagan and Cornwall, and they’ve denied him. And now they’re. They’re making their entrance. They’re conceding to see him. So enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, servants. Good morrow to you both.

Tom Farber: Hail to your grace.

Lizzie King-Hall: I am glad to see your highness.

Randall: Regan, I think you are. I know what reason I have to think so.

Randall Duk Kim: If thou

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Randall Duk Kim: shouldst not be glad, I.

Randall: Would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb, sepulchering and adulteress. Are you free?

Randall Duk Kim: And that’s to cl. That’s to Kent, who’s been put in the stocks, but he’s been freed now. And, Lear sees him and he says, are you free? Well, some other time for that.

Randall: Beloved Regan, thy sister’s naught. Regan, she hath tied sharp toothed unkindness like a vulture here. Here I can scarce speak to thee. Thou wilt not believe with how depraved a quality. O Regan.

Lizzie King-Hall: I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope you less know how to value her desert than she to scant her duty.

Randall: Say, how’s that?

Lizzie King-Hall: I cannot think my sister in the least would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance, she have restrained the riots of your followers. Tis on such ground and to such wholesome end as clears her from all blame.

Randall: My curse is on her.

Lizzie King-Hall: sir, you are old. Nature in you stands on the very verge of his confine. You should be ruled and led by some discretion that Discerns your state better than you yourself. That to you do make return, Say.

Randall: You have wronged her, ask her forgiveness. Do you but mark how this becomes the house. Dear daughter, I confess that I’m old. Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg that you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed and food.

Lizzie King-Hall: Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks. Return you to my sister.

Randall: Never. Regan. She hath abated me of half my train, looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue, most serpent like, upon the very heart. All the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ingrateful top. Strike her young bones, you taking airs with lameness.

Tom Farber: Fie, sir, fie.

Randall: You nimble lightnings dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes, infect beauty. You fen suck fogs, drawn by the powerful sun to fall and blister the blest gods.

Lizzie King-Hall: So you will wish on me when the rash mood is on.

Randall: Oh, no, no, Regan. Thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender, hefty nature shall not give oar to harshness. Her eyes are fierce but thine to comfort and, not burn. Tis not in thee to grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train, to bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes, and, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt against my coming in. No, thou better knowest the offices of nature, bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude. Thy half of the kingdom hast thou not forgot, wherein I thee endow’d, good.

Lizzie King-Hall: Sir, to the purpose.

Randall: Who put my man in the stocks?

Tom Farber: What trumpet’s that?

Lizzie King-Hall: I note my sisters. This approves her letter, that she would soon be here. Is your lady come?

Randall: This is a slave, whose easy borrow’d pride dwells in the sickly grace of her. He follows out varlet from my sight. What means your grace, who stalk’d my servant Regan? I have good hope thou didst not know on’t. Who comes here. Ah, heaven. If you do love old men, if your sweet sway allow obedience, if you yourselves are old, make it your cause. Send down and take my part. Art not ashamed to look upon this beard? Regan, will you take her by the hand?

Jeanne Sakata: Why not by the hand, sir? how have I offended o’t not offence that indiscretion finds, and dotage terms so aside?

Randall: You’re too tough. Will you yet hold? How came my man in the stocks?

Tom Farber: I set him there, sir, but his disorders deserve much less advancement.

Randall: You

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Randall: did you, I pray you, father.

Lizzie King-Hall: Being weak, seem so, if till the expiration of your month you will Return and sojourn with my sister, dismissing half your train. Come then to me. I am now from home, and out of that provision which shall be needful for your entertainment.

Randall: Return to her, and 50 men dismiss’d. No, rather I abjure, ah, all roofs, and choose to wage against the enmity of the air, to be a comrade with a wolf and owl, Necessity’s sharp pinch. Return with her. By the hot blooded France that dowerless took our youngest born, I could as well be brought to knee his throne and squire like a pension beg, to keep base foot alert afoot. Return with her. Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter to this detested groom.

Jeanne Sakata: At your choice, sir.

Randall: I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell. We’ll no more meet, no more see one another. But, yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter, or rather a disease that’s in my flesh, which I needs must call mine. Thou art a boil, a plague sorer, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee, let shame come when it will. I do not call it. I do not bid the thunder bearers shoot, nor tell tales of thee to high judging. Jove mend when thou canst be better at thy leisure. I can be patient. I can stay with Regan. Ay, and my hundred knights.

Lizzie King-Hall: Not altogether so. I looked not for you yet, nor am provided for your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister, for those that mingle reason with your passion must be content to think you old and so, but she knows what she does.

Randall: Is this well spoken?

Lizzie King-Hall: I dare avouch. Ah, it, sir. What, 50 followers? Is it not well? What should you need of more? Yea, or so many sit, that both charge and danger speak gainst so great a number. How in one house should many people under two commands hold amity? Tis hard, almost impossible.

Jeanne Sakata: Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance from those that she calls servants, or from mine?

Lizzie King-Hall: I not, my lord. If then they chance to slack ye, we could control them. If you will come to me, for now I spy a danger. I entreat you to bring but 5 and 20. To no more will I give place or notice.

Randall: I gave you all, and in good.

Lizzie King-Hall: Time you gave it.

Randall: Made you my guardians, my depositaries, but kept a reservation to be followed with such a number. What, must I come to you with 5 and 20? Regan, said you so?

Lizzie King-Hall: And speak’d again, my lord. No more with me.

Randall: Those wicked creatures yet do look well favoured. When others are more wicked, not being the worst, stand in some rank of praise. I’ll go with thee. Thy fifty yet. Ah doth double five and twenty, and thou art twice her love.

Jeanne Sakata: Hear me, my lord. What need you 5 and 20, 10, or 5 to follow in a house where twice so many have a command to tend you?

Lizzie King-Hall: What need one.

Randall Duk Kim: Reason?

Randall: not need basest beggars are in the poorest things superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs. Man’s life is cheap as beasts. Thou art a lady. If only to go warm were gorgeous. Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wearest, which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need. Ah. Heavens, give me patience. Patience I need. You see me here, you gods. Poor old man, full of grief as age wretched and both. If it be you that stirs these daughters hearts against their father, fool me not so much to bear it tamely. Touch me with noble anger, and let not women’s drops stain my man’s cheeks. No, you unnatural hags. I will have

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Randall: such revenges on you both that all the world shall. I will do such things. What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep? No, I’ll not weep. I have full cause of weeping. But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or air hype. Fool. I shall go mad.

Annie Occhiogrosso: We’ll stop it there. Good. Okay. So let me just hear what your feelings are. What. What you. Just. Your overall thoughts about the scene itself. Wow.

Lizzie King-Hall: I feel like I. I’m doing the same thing over and over again. That it’s. I know part of it is, yes, I can. No, you can’t. Yes, I can. No, you can’t. But I definitely. It’s so hard because sometimes I feel like I don’t understand the play because I’m so on the daughter’s side. And, like, I feel like I.

Randall: And you should be.

Lizzie King-Hall: Like. When. You definitely have to, like, add the violence because then you’re like, oh, yeah, okay, they’re sick. But, yeah, it’s an argument. And I need to find for myself how it builds.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Right, right. And I think that what you want to start to look. I don’t know how. How well you guys know the play. That’s why I thought we would read some of the earlier scenes. But everything. All of this, has to come from what led up to it. And we will look at that Goneril and Regan scene after Lear leaves in the first act, where Goneril tries to urge Regan to do Something, and they talk about the father’s disposition, because I think that what we need to see is that progression, what brought us here. All right. and I think there are other elements along. The two girls are coming from two different places. Goneril has already experienced Lear’s wrath. He went with her. For the first month, you’ve been free and breezy. I mean, you know, you’ve been enjoying your little coronet, should we say, having a good time with Cornwall. You know, I mean, there’s just no father there to interfere. And then you get this letter from your sister, and you realize he’s coming, your way. so you leave. You’re not even home. You’re. You leave to come here. And who shows up? Who follows you? Kent finds that out. He comes, and Lear follows him. So there’s no escaping. So what? I would suggest Lizzie to start to look at the things she says the most. And I think you’re going to find that, she says it about four times, I believe. Return you to my sister. That’s her whole goal. Get him to go back to Goneril. Listen, Goneril and Regan are about to oppose each other in a war. Yeah, over their kingdoms. All right? They don’t like each other, you know. However, they have a common enemy right now, and that enemy is Lear, because he’s the one person who can reverse everything and take back that crown. So they join. They’re going to join forces to get rid of the common enemy. Then they’ll go and. And deal with their, you know, the opposition towards each other. So I think the first. So. So the thing that I want you to keep looking at, and this is for everybody. Look at what a character says more than once. Morris Karnofsky, when he did, Shylock, and he’s written a wonderful acting book called the Actor’s Eye. But one of the things he talks about is when he did Shylock, and he was doing the speech to Antonio about, you spit on me, you call me dog. You know, that whole speech. He looked at the speech and he said three times, Antonio. Shylock reminds Antonio that he spat on him. He voided his room. So that. That speech is about, this is what you have done to me. And he said to always look for those. Those patterns in a character’s speech that repeats itself. You know, it’s like now, as I said, with those kids all doing Romeo and Juliet, Romeo goes on and on about fate scaring him. What. What lies ahead, you

00:40:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: know, that. That he feels his. There’s Something in the stars that, you know, are somehow going to do some harm to him or he’s not going to live. He’s not going to survive. He’s not. It’s just terrible things. He says it over and over and over. We avoid it. Why? Because we’re all trying to, show that it’s the greatest love story ever told. So all of that stuff goes out the window, and we focus on. He’s a lover. He’s a lover. So what you want to do is just start to look closely at the text, and I would say, for Regan to, ask the question, what can you do to make him go back to Goneril? Because you do it in the very first moments. The very first thing you say to him, I believe, is, I’m sure that my sister would never slack her duty that it if. And that your knights must have been unruly, because, Sheena, you would never have said that about Goneril. Do you see what I mean? You have to have a purpose in. In saying you’re saying it because the only way you’re going to get on with your share of the kingdom is to get him to go back to her. And you have to use every possible means to do that. And you have the dialogue to do that. The other thing that I want to point out is how can you make Lear change his mind? I know so many productions where these women are done as harridans. From the beginning of the play, everybody’s decided they’re evil. And so let’s just, you know, put mustaches on them and let them twist the edge. But that’s not the point. That, look, there’s no difference between the action of lying and telling the truth. None. The action is the same. Convince the person of what you want them to believe. So what you. What you’re feeling in your heart has nothing to do with what you have to do to get what you want. So my suggestion now, the next time through would be start to treat him as if he’s fragile and that you love him dearly and you’re doing this for his sake.

Lizzie King-Hall: M. Okay.

Annie Occhiogrosso: All right. You know, when Jeannie, you were talking about your family, I think that all of us, when we get to. To this age, around this age, that same thing happens. We look back. All you have to do, I think, is understand what it’s like to go through a funeral. When somebody dies in a family, the nicest people on earth become greedy. All of a sudden. It becomes with who loved who more and why. Can’t I have the ring? And why can’t you know? so I think Shakespeare presents that also in this play. And what makes it tragic is the one person who got the ball going was Lear, which, Randy, which made me think today listening to you, that the thing too that I find about Lear is he has to carry that understanding that it is his fault or he’s participated. So when he scolds them, when he turns on them, he still carries, a sense of I shouldn’t have done this, I shouldn’t have done it. Kent warned him about it.

Randall Duk Kim: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You know, and you have that scene earlier with the fool where he said, I did her wrong. So I think that even when we’ve seen people do this, when they strike out, it’s as much, realizing that they’re wrong that they strike out because they can’t change what they’ve done. Not necessary. Now that doesn’t get Goneril off the hook. Goneril has made up her mind that, the two of them cannot exist under one roof. I mean, you had the taste of the municipality and you have that confrontation, of course, in the earlier speech. And he cursed your womb. Yeah, I don’t. I. I’m not sure there’s anything worse for a father to do to. A daughter. And it hurts, it stings, and it stays with you. So again, the bitterness comes from a motivation. I, think something that’s totally unexpected. I think it’s true of Lear too. He gave the daughters everything. He gave up the throne. You don’t give up the kingship. You don’t give it to your God. Anoint. You’re anointed by God. You don’t give it up. But he did it. And we

00:45:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: can talk about why later. But, but my, My point is, look, put yourself in the shoes of. Have you ever given something that’s wonderful to somebody and then they don’t call you back to say thank you? Just on that little level? Hell, I bake cookies every Christmas for my nieces and I never get a thank you. I go, that’s it. I’m never baking another cookie. I don’t care. They hate me, you know, and so now put, put replace my cookies with a kingdom. I mean, I think the expectation is, is for a lot of, love and respect and, and those nights mean everything. I think we have to be careful in understanding. You have to understand. Look, the thing that happens in the first scene also. And I will stop talking, I promise. But the thing that happens in the first scene Is that that word? Nothing comes up with Cordelia. Nothing. He says to her, he says, what can you say to get a. Ah, a piece larger? And she says nothing. He says, nothing. She says, nothing. He says, nothing will come of nothing. Speak again. Well, you are reducing him to nothing. You’re taking away the only thing he has that still is a remnant of being king.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah, that’s hard to connect with. The knights thing is, hard to fill.

Lizzie King-Hall: And it’s just something important to him.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Take away your father’s car keys all that time.

Lizzie King-Hall: You’re old.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I can still drive. Yeah. And it’s the same thing. She, her argument is. Her argument is dangerous. This is dangerous to you too, because you’re. We can take care of it. We have nights. You don’t need that. That’s exactly right. I’ll drive you. You need to go somewhere. I’ll drive you.

Lizzie King-Hall: That’s it. Yeah, that’s it.

Annie Occhiogrosso: It’s all human. It really is, human. And so I think too, I just want to address one of the things. When you said that you may be misinterpreting the play because you feel on the side of the daughters. I think Shakespeare, the art of Shakespeare. And I think it’s why I question directors who want to impose their vision on a play. I get it. It’s the world we live in. I get it. And some directors are brilliant at it. I mean, sometimes they put something on it that is wonderful. But I think that what Shakespeare has done in that statement in Hamlet about holding a mirror up to nature. He allows you to come to see this and be who you are, to see what you see. I’m the middle daughter in my. With my three sisters. I used to write cards to my father that said all my love. And I read Lear. I stopped writing it and now I. And then I. He’s gone now. But I, I just wrote with much love or I love you, daddy. I had to get rid of it because. Because even on that small level and we, you know, we do, we laugh at it, we think, well, yeah, but you. What does that. Well, I’ll tell you. Years later, my father. I went off with Randy to Hawaii and my father was. Wanted me home. We weren’t married at the time. my father said, who do you love more? And I said, don’t ask because you’re not going to like the answer. And I love my father and my father loved me. So I think Shakespeare is managed by who holding that mirror up to say, who are You. What do you feel about that character Lear? I told Randy this the other day. He’s impossible. He’s impossible. I mean, I have a grandmother that. My sister.

Randall Duk Kim: Life.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah, that’s right. So whatever. And he’s coming from his place. It’s this. But again, look what he says to them. He. He. He just, you know, goes off into curses. And they’re. And they’re large, mythic curses. Nature. He brings down nature and all that, you know. So, So I think that we have to at least see what happens when you put power into the wrong hands. Ultimately, that’s going to be the question because, look, I don’t. I hope it wouldn’t. I would have not been led down a path where I would kill my. Throw my father out into a storm. I think hopefully

00:50:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: I would have never allowed that to happen. But these girls do progress to an evil based on, wanting more and more and more. And so we have to look at their behavior after this scene. And, for me, it happens when you send an old man of 80 years old out into us, he’s no longer king. He’s no longer. You wouldn’t do it to your father and you wouldn’t do it to your dog. You know, so that. Become. The play does take a turn, I think, after this scene. Makes sense. Everybody am I. It’s good. Can we take a look at the first scene? Randy, I’d like you to tell them about your darker purpose. Beginning of, you know, act one, when Lear and everyone enters. And I’d like to do it with the two expressions of love that the daughters give forth to the father.

Jeanne Sakata: We’re going back to scene one then?

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, please.

Randall: You don’t mind, do you?

Annie Occhiogrosso: By the way, I will get back to Gonel. I haven’t forgotten you, but I just want to fill this information.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, no, no. So I’m just trying to find. Okay, got it. And that’s the two speeches by Gonerill and.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, so. So we’re going to start with Lear.

Jeanne Sakata: M. I love. This is how I love you. That section.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, that’s right.

Randall Duk Kim: And we’ll stop before Cordelia speaks.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right.

Lizzie King-Hall: What’s the line number on the folio?

Annie Occhiogrosso: I don’t have line numbers in my folios. So it starts with. It’s. It’s right at the end.

Lizzie King-Hall: Meantime, we shall express.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, yes, got it.

Randall Duk Kim: Yes, thanks.

Randall: Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided in three our kingdom. Tis our fast intent to shake all cares and business from our age, conferring them on younger strengths, while we, unburdened crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall, and you a no less loving son of Albany. We have this hour a constant will to publish our daughter several dowers that future strife may be prevented now. The princes France and Burgundy, great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love, long in our court, have made their amorous sojourn, and here to be answered. Tell me, my daughters, since now we will divest us both of rule, interest of territory, cares of state, which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our, largest bounty may extend where nature doth with merit challenge. Goneril, eldest born, speak first.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Sir.

Jeanne Sakata: I love you more than word can wield the matter. Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty, beyond what can be valued rich or rare, no less than life with grace, health, beauty, honor, as much as child ever loved or father found. A love that makes breath poor and speech unable beyond all matter of so much I love you.

Tom Farber: shall Cordelius speak, love, and be silent.

Randall: All these bounds, even from this line to this, with shadowy forests and with champaigns rich with plenteous rivers and wide skirted meads, we make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issues be this perpetual. What says our second daughter? A dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?

Lizzie King-Hall: I am, made of that self metal as my sister, and prize me at her worth in my true heart I find she names my very deed of love. Only she comes too short that I profess myself an enemy to all other joys which the most precious square of sense professes, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness Love.

Tom Farber: Poor Cordelia. Yet not so, since I am sure my love’s more ponderous than my tongue.

Randall: To thee and thine hereditary ever remain this ample

00:55:00

Randall: third of our fair kingdom, no less in space, validity and pleasure than that conferred on Goneril now our joy, although last and least, to whose young love the vines of France and milk of Burgundy strive to be interest. What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Speak good. okay, so let’s look at what you’ve. How you’ve expressed your love. Goneral, you say that he is more dear than your eyesight, than space and freedom, more than life itself, is nothing as dear to you as your father. And what’s interesting, I think, is that you also say that I love you more than any child could ever boast of loving a father. And what you did there, by the way, is you’ve just cut out all other children getting a better piece of the kingdom than you. I’m the best child. I love the best of all children.

Jeanne Sakata: And I’m the eldest.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah. Okay. And what’s interesting also love that makes breath poor and speech unable. Keep that thought, Jeanne, because we’re going to see if that holds true when she confronts him in the next act here, she says it’s I love you. So I’m speech like, I can’t speak.

Jeanne Sakata: M. Wow, that’s great. Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: The other thing I do want to point out, we’ll get into text work next. Next week, but here’s. I think you’ll love this moment if you count the number of beats in Our eldest born speak first. Our eldest born speak first. Right. You have four empty beats there. What, I would suggest is. Is he catches you by surprise.

Jeanne Sakata: Yes. I was thinking that as I was listening to it, I. You know, I didn’t know. I mean, I. I’m. I’m assuming. I didn’t know he was going to spring this love contest. And so I’ve got a scramble. Oh, my God. he’s called me first. And I felt like all the strategy was going in my head.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yep.

Jeanne Sakata: You know what? Ah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And yet.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, my God. You know, I didn’t have time to prepare. I have to really gush, and I have to really.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You’re up first. Right, Right. But I think that feeling you have about, oh, my God, you can infuse her expression of love by pulling the right thing out rather than too confidently expressing it. Okay, you see what I mean? It needs to be truth. He’s got to convince him. But you still are, working on your feet. Yes, that’s right. Because he has chose you first. Now, of course, Regan gets to hear what she says, and she’s going. She’s going to. Can you top this?

Jeanne Sakata: I just hated that moment when she said, but she falls short. It’s like my heart sank.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right. Now, here’s the other thing. Look at what you say. She comes too short. I profess myself an enemy to all other joys. which the most precious square of sense prevents a time, you know, the tiniest expression of joy, and I’m only happy with your love. Okay. Does that hold true in that scene we’re doing?

Lizzie King-Hall: Right.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Makes you happy. So here’s what’s on the line.

Lizzie King-Hall: But he bought it.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes. And what’s wonderful is he bought it because all you have to play is that love, both of you. You don’t have to play harridan. You don’t have to play evil sisters. You play. Play the two best sisters, obedient to the queen, the king, who loves him with all your heart. And let Cordelia be the one who says nothing, my lord. So we start the play off, and it’s Kent who ultimately, by the way, I just want to add this, is that Kent does not call what Lear. He doesn’t step in now. He only steps in when Cordelia is banished. He and he know. And the other thing I think you already know. The kingdom’s already been divided. Yeah, he did that already. And the question I would ask,

01:00:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: for instance, Goneral, when you. When he tells you the portion of the kingdom you’re going to get, how do you know if it’s the best?

Jeanne Sakata: Yeah, I mean, that’s why my mind was so active during this whole scene, because. Okay, so. Oh, okay, I’m getting a third. Well, that looks pretty great, but it’s a third. And if Reagan does better, is she going to get more than a third? I mean, I don’t know the rules of this.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right.

Jeanne Sakata: That makes me very anxious. At the same time, I’m relieved that I am getting a third. And I mean, it’s described so beautifully, you know, but again, I’m feeling grateful and relieved and excited that I’m inheriting this. But then it’s still a contest, so who’s gonna. Is someone gonna do better than I am and get better land than I can’t be the best changes mind and say, no, Reagan, you were better. Your love is. Is more. And. And so I’m gonna. Maybe you can have this one.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Here’s the thing. It’s a setup. It’s a setup because it’s all being done so that Cordelia can marry the, Have the best marriage. That’s why he’s doing it. He’s saving that. No, no, no, they don’t. But, all I’m saying is that the reason you’re feeling. Do I have the best? Don’t I have the been? What just happened is because. Because it doesn’t really have rhyme or reason. This is Lear trying to solve the problem and. And make, it a win for everybody. So. So there is. That’s there. And the same thing will happen with what the portion that he offers you. So his expectation is that Cordelia will give the best love speech ever, and therefore she’ll get the best, you know, piece of the kingdom. So you’re all. So I think you’re right there is a sense of confusion. If he’s given you your. Your portion of the kingdom, then there are two portions left, which is the best.

Lizzie King-Hall: And also, the contest doesn’t make sense if you give the prize out before the other people have competed.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s exactly right. right. Yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: We also make reference to his, you know, his changeable nature. I mean, we. This first scene play. But I can’t help but think that he’s already had displays of this. And I don’t think that he. He seems so. So, What’s the word? Something like changeable, but it’s more mercurial. And if that’s part of his personality, if that’s always been a part of his personality that he says this now, my stepmother was like this. She would, you know, would say, oh, here’s something for you, a gift. And then if we didn’t do something right, she said, I’m taking that back. And so you were never sure whether. Yeah, you were never sure. Like, she would go into the closet. If she buys a dress or something for us, she would go into the closet. I’m taking this back. You didn’t clean the toilet. Right. You know, and so I, I always. I felt this. Maybe this is just me, but I just felt this kind of insecurity. Like, oh, I’m getting this beautiful piece of land, but am I. Am I really? There’s two more sisters to go.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And what you’re describing. And we will move on to that next scene. What you’re describing is exactly what Goneril fears, that he is so changeable he could change his mind. We’re going to see more behavior like this. And you say. I think it’s Regan who says he seldom has known himself. So there are things about Lear’s personality. I think that. So I think you’re right in the right place. That our quest. That. How secure can you feel? and the fact that, again, when this confrontation happens with Cordelia and she’s out of the picture and he takes the dowry away from Burgundy and France takes her without, you know, and he’s enraged with Cordelia, how secure can any of us feel about him? You know? So I think you’re in the right place to feel that insecurity. That’s why I say I caution against deciding that they already have a plot to kill him or to get rid of him. You don’t have. You can let the play unfold step by step.

Jeanne Sakata: Yes, because that makes sense to me. As we experience more of his, cruelty, you know, like cursing Me and you know that I feel like there is a progression that, you know, we can start off as like you said, and the loving daughters, you know,

01:05:00

Jeanne Sakata: or at least we’re trying to play that role, you know, and then as he becomes more unhinged, I mean, to my perspective and, and attack me for what I think it seems are reasonable things that I’m saying to him, that, it’s almost like. And that coupled with the fact that I have some power now, you know, it’s like I’ve always obeyed you. I’ve always had to obey you. I’ve always taken whatever you dished out and this is the line I’m gonna draw. And now I’m in charge, you know, So I love, I love that idea of progression because I’ve often seen Donald Reagan played, you know, like you said, and just evil from the beginning and, and I love the idea that they could become more flesh and blood daughters that are, experiencing that it’s the.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Events that hap that that will unfold. Then we can go back later as an audience member and think, wow, was she lying when she said she loved him? Because. But we all do it. You see. I think that’s what’s so important is we all say things like a Hallmark card like, you know, but do our actions show that in the end? You know, So I think that we’re, we’re all in a very good place. But I wanted you to see what your promises are so you can see down the road whether or not your whole. By any of it.

Randall Duk Kim: I think what attracts us to Shakespeare too, is that where we watch characters make decisions, take actions step by step in, kind of working out their destinies. You know, some people step by step go down a bad route. Others go maybe a happier route, like in a comedy or something. But in a tragedy, we watch these people step by step create a whirlpool for themselves in which everybody’s going to get caught and die, you know, and cruelties will manifest themselves. But every step of the way we watch them make those decisions and entertain those thoughts and perhaps not meaning to, not meaning to go that way, but they do.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I think it’s why I always. Look, I, I believe the theater could help with the chaos we’re in right now. That’s how much faith I have in the theater. But as long as we see it as purely entertainment and a means to fill seats, and we’ll do anything to get that done, and we don’t understand how this is a reflection on who we are. We offer you an opportunity to come into a space, sit next to an absolute stranger and see myself with having to. Not having to reveal who I am. But I can sit in the theater and reflect on my behavior without being accused, without being right or left, without being whatever, you know, group we belong to, but just me and I watch. And I, as you, Jeanne, see your family in this play, and I see my family. there’s this other side of the play also that has to do with old age, and we are heading there. I have a sister who tells me her. And, ah, we talked about the car keys, that her kids now have switched positions. And so here’s Lear, who is not only old, he’s a kid. He was a king. And so now we have to see it from his perspective of what he’s given and what, what he’s given up, you know, who he is. And if you think for a minute that only he is subject to, rage, I, think you’re sadly mistaken. I mean, I know I’ve been there on a number of occasions, but. But again, each one of these characters is coming from a circumstance that lead them. But it’s their nature. Again, in. In the end, it’s their nature. I don’t want to. I don’t want to let the. Everybody off the hook by saying, oh, these were really nice girls. And if he, you know, he should have just minded his own business and let them be. If they were really nice girls, then in Act 3 and act, 4, they would. They would have been nice girls, too. They would have found a way around. But they make choices that shape who they are. Okay, And. And I, You know, we won’t get to that part of the play, but let’s face it, one sister poisons the other, you

01:10:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: know, so. Okay, so can we just take a look at the scene between the two girls after Lear has banished Cordelia? And that would be. It’s right after Lear’s exit, if you want to. Oh. Uh-huh. You see where he says, come Burgundy.

Lizzie King-Hall: Come, noble Burgundy.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes.

Lizzie King-Hall: France has their.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right. and Thomas, since your Cordelia is so lovely.

Tom Farber: Thank you.

Annie Occhiogrosso: It was very nice. I appreciated it. So. So. France says, bid farewell to your sisters. Thomas, if you would do that jewel speech. And then girls will go right into the next.

Tom Farber: Yes, the jewels of our father with washed eyes, Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are and like a sister most love to call your faults as they are named love. Well, our father to your Professed. Bosoms, I commit him. But, alas, stood I within his grace, I would prefer him to a better place. So farewell to you both.

Lizzie King-Hall: Prescribe not us our duty.

Jeanne Sakata: Let your study be to content your lord who hath received you at fortune’s arms. You, have obedience scanted. And well are worth the want that you have wanted.

Tom Farber: Time shall unfold what plight of cunning hides, who covers faults at last with shame derides.

Randall Duk Kim: Well may m you prosper, my fair Cordelia.

Jeanne Sakata: It is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

Lizzie King-Hall: I’m sorry. I always forget. Do I say with us.

Annie Occhiogrosso: What? What?

Lizzie King-Hall: It’s above, it’s below. I’m 18 again.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Is.

Lizzie King-Hall: Is the. With us? My next line.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s most certain. And with you.

Lizzie King-Hall: But there’s. Does it say with us? Am I the only person who has that?

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah.

Lizzie King-Hall: Next month with us. It’s above. That’s most certain. And with you. Next month with us.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s the way it goes.

Lizzie King-Hall: That’s most certain. And with you. Next month with us.

Jeanne Sakata: You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most. And with what poor judgment he had now cast her off.

Lizzie King-Hall: Appears too grossly is the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.

Jeanne Sakata: The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash. Then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long engraft condition, but there with all the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

Lizzie King-Hall: Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment.

Jeanne Sakata: There is further compliment of leave taking between France and him. Pray, let us sit together. If our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears. This last surrender of his will but.

Lizzie King-Hall: Offend us, we shall further think of it.

Jeanne Sakata: We must do something. And in the heat.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Good, good. So what’s happening there? And you see, Jeannie, this does go back to what. What you were saying about his disposition. And I would suggest to both of you once again to. It doesn’t have to be so fraught. I think it’s two sisters who are having a conversation. You know how he is. and there’s trepidation under it. But I would not, I would say for Goneril, I would save, for Act 2. The moment where She’s. Or the next scene where she said, did my father slap my, you know, my hit my gentleman for, scolding the fool. You. You have a reason to get personally upset with him. Here it’s about revealing what you know about your father and a reflection on his behavior in that scene. I would with Shakespeare, because there’s no subtext. I think what you want to do is to make sure that you don’t put a lot underneath the line, that the line itself is a discussion of, did you see the way he behaved? You know, how he is. And he’s old. And we have those. It’s a conversation behind two sisters who could never say it publicly to their father. and what I love about

01:15:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: the scene also is, again, Lizzy, look at you. You’re sitting there saying, next month I don’t have to worry about it.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You see, next month with you and you. So you have a month with us. Goner was the. Yeah. Conral has got to be the one who pulls you out of your lack of interest in doing anything, to let you know what’s at stake here. And she does make you think about it. You will change. You say you first. You say it’s the infirmity of his age. Yet he’s. He’s never known who he is. He’s never known himself. And you come back with the best and soundest of his time. His age hath been but rash. That’s what old people are. And even. Even the best of them are rash. Then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long and graft condition. You know, so you have to work on her. She really needs you to pull her. She’s not by. She’s not worried because it’s not tonight. He’s going with her. You’re the one who’s got to do something and in the heat. But you need her to support that because we’re both going to be in trouble. I always feel like Goneril is just a little bit, wiser than. But again, you’re the older sister. You’ve been around him longer, you know, because even at the end, Reagan, you say, we shall further think of it. Okay, I’ll give it a thought.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah, that’s much better.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And. And your response is, we must do something, you know, and hurry. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. All right.

Jeanne Sakata: Can I ask,

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: About, I don’t know if these lines are correct. I think it’s around 1-3-44 there with all the un. I’m sorry. Then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long engraft condition? What is engraft?

Annie Occhiogrosso: Engraft is. Is inborn. Part of him. Part of him.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, okay. Oh, I’m saying. So it’s. It’s not just his personality, but it’s aging and what aging brings, you know, to make him more unpredictable and changeable and mercurial. Is that what I’m saying?

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, I think what you’re saying. We. We should. We’ll, The best time was the time of the we look from. Then must we look from his age because from him as an old man to receive not only his wonky disposition or part and parcel of who he is, but besides that. This, this unruly, this undisciplined work, you know, as you said before, changeability, that infirm and choleric you. So the older he gets, the more angry he’s going to get. Him. His change is going to get worse and worse.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah. I feel like I’m saying, oh, that’s just how he is. And she’s like, no, this is spiraling.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes. And that’s exactly true. That’s what she said. That’s what the engraft is. She. You’re. She’s going back to what you have just said. That’s who he is. And you say, well, besides who he is. We’re going to have to expect even worse behavior up ahead as he gets older.

Randall Duk Kim: Yes. That, we just witnessed in public. We watched him deal with Cordelia. We watched him deal with Kent in such a rational matter.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And that makes. That makes. Lizzy, that makes you think such unconstant starts is. Yes, maybe you’re right. So, yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: Seeing him do this to Cordelian can. Totally out of the blue, unexpected even for us. Having this mercurial father. It’s like.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, yes, okay. Yes, absolutely.

Randall: He’s banished both of them.

Jeanne Sakata: Yes.

Randall: Banished.

Randall Duk Kim: In a moment.

Jeanne Sakata: And we always thought that he loved Cordelia best.

Randall: That’s right.

Jeanne Sakata: We were expecting she’d get the best piece of land. Right.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right. Yeah. And we never hear about that third part of the kingdom, before it’s ever talked about.

Randall Duk Kim: Except he told Cornwall in Albany, take the third. Take the third and divide it amongst you.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Right, right. I mean, the description of it. We don’t. That we haven’t heard the description. We can guess that it’s. It’s very good. Why? Because the prize is the king of France. Yeah, It’s Great that you guys are with Albany and Cornwall. But my God, you know,

01:20:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: Burgundy and France. that’s incredible. That means the kingdom can be united with another country. Country.

Jeanne Sakata: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Through that marriage.

Randall Duk Kim: Plus, Burgundy was a very wealthy country.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah.

Randall Duk Kim: Known for its wealth.

Jeanne Sakata: Burgundy. Ah, I’ve been to Burgundy. It’s just.

Tom Farber: It’s lovely this time of year, huh?

Randall: Food.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah. So now they have a. They. It’s Ghana. Who’s saying, we have to. We have to do this. But they’re both. Both going in. I mean, particularly Garnell. She’s going into this evening with, the first week with her father, with a sense of keeping an eye on him. What trouble is going to happen? Because I’m expecting trouble.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: By what I’ve just witnessed, you know, and by who he is, I accept.

Randall Duk Kim: The condition that they have to host not only their father, but a hundred of his men.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah.

Randall: They have to. How?

Randall Duk Kim: They have to house them, feed them, entertain them. You know, that’s.

Nathan Agin: That’s a tall order.

Randall: For a month.

Lizzie King-Hall: It’s like people who insist on bringing their dog.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And they don’t.

Jeanne Sakata: They bring 100 dogs.

Lizzie King-Hall: Like bring my huge, or not even huge, just dog to your house. It’s like, that’s so different from just you coming.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Right. And you want to be a good host.

Lizzie King-Hall: That won’t completely change every second of every day.

Jeanne Sakata: So.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Okay, so now we’ve. We’ve seen. We’ve seen that progression. I love you more than anything. I love that. That was another thing I wanted to point out. it’s quite wonderful to see them vie. I love you the most. No, I love you the most. In the next scene, the scene we’re doing, it’s the opposite. I say I. I take 50. Well, I take. I give you 25. Well, I give you none. You know, so they’re still vying, but this time, instead of building him up with praise, they’re tearing him down. They’re going to take more and more. Who. Who can take the most away from him? So they don’t. So he does not go with them.

Jeanne Sakata: M. He’s.

Annie Occhiogrosso: We have to. So it’s. You know, that’s great.

Jeanne Sakata: I always saw that as sort of pre. Planned, but if it’s. If they’re competing even then as to. I mean, and that’s so real.

Randall: Right.

Jeanne Sakata: Some. You know, there’s three girls in my family and. Oh, God, we were always competing. Like when we were. When we were younger, it was. It was like I. I used to be so anxious about, you know, these Competitions. It’s like, who can cook the best dinner? You know, who can.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Well, I think too, in this, in that scene, we’ll go back to is when you. When you say. When he says, you know, I’ll go. You say, I spy a danger. I’ll. 25 from me. I’ll. You know, because God’s giving you 50. I’m. I, give you 25. And then Lear. No, before that. Lear says, I have another. You can, be good when you want to be good. Behave the way you want to behave. I have another daughter. I can go with Reagan. She’ll let me have my hundred nights. You come in and say, not altogether so, sir. And then you have your reasons for it. But then you reduce those 50 to 25 so he comes back to you.

Lizzie King-Hall: Is I find a danger that parenthetical, is so is that like. Actually, I’ve just realized that won’t work for me.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s. Well, yes. You don’t want him, so no bargain. You’re. That’s why you’re whittling this down. You don’t want him with you. If he’s there, he can’t resist being king. Do you see? It’s not about I hate him or I want him dead. It’s about I want to rule. I have this new power and I don’t want my father, my. The king with all of his knights. And, I think Goneril is quite right. How do you rule that house? Who’s in charge? And it all starts with Goneril, when she says one of the knights scolded Lir’s. One of your knights scolded Lir’s. Fool.

Lizzie King-Hall: so it would maybe in performance, would. For now, I spy a danger be on a side.

Annie Occhiogrosso: No, I don’t think so. I think you’re saying it m. I’m worried. Yeah, I’m worried. You know, and then you come back with again. Now we have the gentle Goneril. The gentle Gonerl

01:25:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: comes back with, you know, my. Why not. Why not just let us. Yeah, that’s right. We have a good idea. And of course, you have the most chill. I think Regan has the most chilling line of all. What? Need one?

Jeanne Sakata: Yeah.

Randall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Nothing. He’s reduced. It’s over.

Lizzie King-Hall: What’s the point?

Jeanne Sakata: I love the line altogether so.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes, yes.

Jeanne Sakata: Whoa now.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I don’t know. Do we have time to read that scene one more time?

Randall Duk Kim: Sure we should.

Tom Farber: It’s 6:30, so you could.

Annie Occhiogrosso: What? Yeah, yeah.

Tom Farber: It’s 6:30, SO.

Randall Duk Kim: Yep.

Annie Occhiogrosso: So whenever you guys are ready, we can jump in.

Randall Duk Kim: Good morrow to you both.

Tom Farber: Hail to your grace.

Lizzie King-Hall: I am glad to see your highness.

Randall: I think you are. I know what reason I have to think so. If thou shouldst not be glad, I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb, sepulchering an adulteress. Ah, are you free?

Randall Duk Kim: Or some other time for that.

Randall: O Regan, thy sister’s naught. She hath tied sharp toothed unkindness here like a vulture. Here I can scarce speak to thee. Thou wilt not believe with how deprav’d a quality O Regan.

Lizzie King-Hall: I pray you, sir, take patience. I half hope you less know how to value her desert than she to scant her duty.

Randall: Say, how’s that?

Lizzie King-Hall: I cannot think my sister in the least would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance, she have restrained the riots of your followers. Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end. As clear, sir, from all blame.

Randall: My, curse is on her.

Lizzie King-Hall: Sir, you are old. Nature in you stands on the very verge of his confine. You should be ruled and led by some discretion that discerns your state better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you, that to our sister you do make return. Say you have wronged her, but ask her forgiveness.

Randall: Do but mark how this becomes the house. Dear daughter, I confess that I’m old. Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg that you vouchsafe me raiment, bed and food.

Lizzie King-Hall: Good sir, no more. These are unsightly tricks. Return you to my sister.

Randall: Never. Regan. She had abated me of half my train, looked black upon me, struck me with a tongue most serpent like upon the very heart O, the stored vengeances of heaven light on our ungrateful top. Strike her young bones. You. You strike her young bones. You taking airs with lameness.

Tom Farber: I survive.

Randall: You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes, infect her beauty, you fen sucked fogs, drawn by the powerful sun to fall and blister.

Lizzie King-Hall: O the blest God, so you a wish on me when the rash mood is on.

Randall: No, Regan, no. Thou shalt never have my curse. Thy tender, hefted nature shall not give the o’er to harshness. her eyes are fierce, but thine to comfort and not burn. Tis not in thee to grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train, to bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes, and in conclusion, to oppose the bolt against my coming in. O, thou better knowest, officers of nature, bond of childhood, effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude. Thy half of the kingdom hast Thou not forgot wherein I thee endow’d.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Good sir.

Lizzie King-Hall: Ah, to the purpose.

Randall: Who put my man in the stocks?

Lizzie King-Hall: What that I note. My sisters. This approves her letter, that she would soon be here.

Annie Occhiogrosso: The lady. come.

Randall: This is a slave, whose easy borrowed pride

01:30:00

Randall: dwells in the fickle grace of her. He follows out, varlet, from my sight. What means your grace, who stalked my servant Regan? I’ve good hope thou didst not know on’t who comes here. Heavens, if you do love old men, if your sweet sway allow obedience, if you yourselves are old, make it your cause. Send down and take my part. Art not ashamed to look upon this beard? Regan, will you take her by the hand?

Jeanne Sakata: Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended? All’s not offence that indiscretion finds, and dotage terms so.

Randall: besides, you’re too tough. Will you yet hold? How came my man in the stocks?

Tom Farber: I set him there, sir, but his own disorders deserve much less advancement.

Randall: You did you?

Lizzie King-Hall: I pray you, father, being weak seem so. If, till the expiration of your month you will return and sojourn with my sister, dismissing half your train, come then to me. I am now from home, and out of that provision which shall be needful for your entertainment.

Randall: Return to her and 50 of men dismissed. No, rather I adjure all roofs, and choose to wage against the enmity of the air, to be a comrade with the wolf and owl, Necessity’s sharp pinch. Return to her wit. Her? Why, the hot blooded France, that dowerless took our youngest born. I could as well be brought to knee his throne and squire like pension, beg to keep base life of aught. Return with her. Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter to this detested groom.

Jeanne Sakata: At your choice, sir.

Randall: I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad. I will not trouble thee, my child. Farewell. We’ll no more meet, no more see one another. But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter. Or, rather a disease that’s in my flesh, which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil, a plague sore, or embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee. Let shame come when it will. I do not. I, do not call it. I do not bid the thunder bearers shoot, nor tell tales of thee to hide, judging Jove mend when thou canst be better at thy leisure. I can be patient. I can stay with Regan, I and my hundred knights.

Lizzie King-Hall: Not altogether so. I looked not for you yet, nor am provided for your fit welcome. Give ears to my sister, for those that mingle reason with your passion must be content to think you old and so, but she knows what she does.

Randall: Is this, well spoken?

Lizzie King-Hall: I dare avouch it, sir. What, 50 followers? Is it not well? What should you need of more? Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger speak gainst so great a number? How in one house should many people under two commands hold amity? Tis hard, almost impossible.

Jeanne Sakata: Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance from those that she calls servants or mine?

Lizzie King-Hall: Why not, my lord? If then they chance to slack ye, we could control them. If you will come to me, for now I spy a danger. I entreat you to bring but 5 and 20. To no more will I give place or notice.

Randall: I gave you all.

Lizzie King-Hall: and in good time you gave it.

Randall: Made you my guardians, my depositories, but kept a reservation to be followed with such a number. What, must I come to you with 5 and 20? Regan, said you so?

Lizzie King-Hall: And speak’d again, my lord. No more with me.

Randall: Those wicked creatures look well favoured when others are more wicked. Not being the worst stands in some rank of praise.

01:35:00

Randall: I’ll go with thee. Thy 50 yet, ah, doth double 5 and 20, and thou art twice her love.

Jeanne Sakata: Marry, my lord, what need you 5 and 20, 10 or 5, to follow in a house where twice so many have a command to tend you?

Lizzie King-Hall: What need one?

Randall: O, reason not the need. Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous. Allow not nature more than nature needs. Man’s life is cheap as beast. Thou art a lady, if only to go warm were gorgeous. Why, nature needs not what gorgeous wearest, which scarcely keeps thee warm? But for true need. No, you heavens, give me that patience, patience I need. You see me here, you gods, poor old man, as full of grief as age. Wretched and both. If it be you that stirs these daughters hearts against their father, fool me not so much to tame it, to bear it tamely, but touch me with noble anger. And let not women’s weapons, water drops, stain my man’s cheeks.

Randall Duk Kim: No, you unnatural hags.

Randall: I will have such revenges on you both that all the world shall. I will do such things. What they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth. You think I’ll, weep? No, I’ll not weep. I have full course of weeping, but this heart, will break into a hundred thousand flaws, or e’er I’ll, weep. O fool. I, ah, shall go mad.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Good Better. Better. We’re moving ahead. It’s great. Questions or thoughts or. You said you started to get that vine. You start to see how they. How they do vibe with one another.

Jeanne Sakata: that really activated that section for me. It’s like, damn, she’s, you know, doing it again. She’s.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah, but we can’t lose because we’re just working together to lower the price.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah.

Randall: yes.

Jeanne Sakata: Like, it’s.

Lizzie King-Hall: It’s.

Jeanne Sakata: It’s.

Annie Occhiogrosso: It’s.

Jeanne Sakata: Yeah, it’s interesting. We’re sort of collaborating, but we’re also positive outcome.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You see, one of the things he’s done is he’s put a price on. On the. The kingdom, on. On love. He says, who can say, tell me who loves me the most? You know, he’s not asking for show me who can show me that they love me the most. He wants to hear it. And now he’s learning that. And that’s what I think about the reason, not the need. It’s not about needing a hundred nights. It’s about a king not having the thing that makes him happy. A king makes him alive. And you have diminished that. You’ve taken what he’s done in the first act to some degree and made it a number. It becomes a. You know, it’s not about anything that has to do with his feelings. It’s purely about 150, 25. 1. None. And that’s why he says, don’t. It’s not about need. The clothes you’re wearing can’t keep you warm.

Nathan Agin: You don’t.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You don’t. They’re not going to keep you warm. warm in the cold, you know, and so I. I think that. That that’s what this is reduced to now. and it’s an understanding again, is what is love? We start the whole playoff with that. What is love? And what price Is there a price that you can put on it? And Cordelia says no, and she’s, you know, she’s thrown out. Yeah.

Randall: Can we.

Randall Duk Kim: Can we read to the end of the scene after.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yes.

Randall: just. Just to give a sense of what.

Randall Duk Kim: The girls are up to, even then.

Randall: Okay.

Annie Occhiogrosso: How it culminates. Yeah. I didn’t do it because we didn’t have a Gloucester, but we can. You can do Gloucester, Randy.

Randall: I, will.

Randall Duk Kim: Okay.

Annie Occhiogrosso: All right. Let me play the lion, too.

Randall: I’ll play the lion, too.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Okay.

Tom Farber: Would you like me to start?

Randall Duk Kim: Cornwall?

Randall: Yeah.

Jeanne Sakata: I’m sorry.

Randall: What line are we right after.

Jeanne Sakata: Let us withdraw. Let us withdraw.

Tom Farber: Let us withdraw. Twill be a Storm.

Lizzie King-Hall: This house is little. The old man and his people cannot be well bestowed.

Jeanne Sakata: This is own blame hath put himself from rest and must needs taste his folly.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Hold on. I want. Because while we’re doing it, I do want to just throw a little thing in there and that is. You’re absolutely right. This is where we talk about this again. You don’t have to make it harsh at all. This is for his own good with that storm, because he’s got to learn the lesson. And you know the same thing about there’s no room for anybody. Of course you have to throw them. That’s what makes you despicable.

Jeanne Sakata: Yeah, yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You don’t see it. You know, it’s great when evil is honest.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: When it’s hidden under the guise of, what’s good for someone. Listen, we’re in a political situation right now where that, that happens left and right. This is good, you know, Good. I’m, I’m. Again, I’m. Well, I don’t want to give you my political viewpoint, but, but I think you understand what I’m saying is that people have these points of view and it’s always the best for somebody else.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And so I think that what you want to do, this is what makes audience have audiences sit and think, oh my God, is she really saying that? You know, as opposed to I hate her guts. You know. Okay, can we do it one more time?

Tom Farber: Let us withdraw. It will be a storm.

Lizzie King-Hall: This house is little. The old man, its people cannot be well bestowed.

Jeanne Sakata: This his own blame hath put himself from rest and must needs taste his folly.

Lizzie King-Hall: For his particular I’ll receive him gladly, but not one follower.

Jeanne Sakata: So am I purpose. Where’s my lord of Gloucester?

Tom Farber: followed the old man forth. He has returned.

Randall: King is in high rage.

Tom Farber: Whither is he going?

Randall: He calls to horse, and will I know not whither.

Tom Farber: Tis best to give him way. He leads himself.

Randall: My lord, entreat him by. No.

Randall Duk Kim: Oh no, that’s Goneril.

Jeanne Sakata: My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

Randall: Alack, the night comes on and the high winds do sorely ruffle. For many miles about is scarce a.

Lizzie King-Hall: Bush to wilful men. The injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors. He is attended with a desperate train. And what they may incense him to, being apt to have his ears abused. Wisdom bids fear.

Tom Farber: Shut up your doors, my lord. Tis a wild night, my Reagan. Counselors will come out of the storm.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I would even take it. I would even Go further with this house is little. The old man’s people cannot be well bestowed. Tis his own blame hath put himself, and he must taste his folly. I mean, I. I think the more innocent you guys go for it, the more horrible it is.

Lizzie King-Hall: Got it.

Annie Occhiogrosso: And that particularly, you know. Oh, sir, to willful men, the injuries that they themselves must be their school masters. You have to school Gloucester. You don’t understand. You see this child.

Jeanne Sakata: So we have to.

Lizzie King-Hall: And it’s really too bad.

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s right. and this is the child who’s locked in the garage in the cold weather, and they find him dead in the morning.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah. He has not had. It’s not my fault. He does not have the pneumonia vaccine.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I mean, that case was just tried, you know, a month ago where those parents put that disobedient, ah. Child in a garage. Bitter cold. And he died. And that’s the point. He needs to learn a lesson. Well, what lesson is that? And that’s what makes us. Again, you don’t want to do that for the. You want to just open the door and the audience walk through.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah, that’s such a. Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Yeah. Okay, good. I did want to bring up one other thing, and that is the. To the purpose. when you said. When, Regan says to the purpose and Lear says, who’s. Who put my man in the stocks.

Randall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: What leads up to this? And I think somebody was asking about this before.

Lizzie King-Hall: Before.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I think that was the email that Nathan sent me. What leads up to this is when Lear arrives, Kent is in the stocks. And Ken says that it’s both your daughter and your son in law. And Lear says no, and Ken says yes.

01:45:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: And then Gloucester comes in and says they’re not feeling well. They really can’t see you. And Lear is beside himself. And at first he’s enraged. Then he says, maybe I’m overreacting. Acting. Maybe they are sick men. And so when the scene starts and Regan comes in and she says, I’m glad to see your highness. He says, I think you are. Because if you weren’t, I mean, m. He doesn’t say, oh, good. I love you. Kiss, kiss. He says, if you were not glad to see me. Yeah. I would say your mother is not your mother, you know? And so he has a doubt, but he’s put. He. He’s put that doubt aside through this scene because you’re the loving daughter. You’re. Of course, you’re. You’re saying that Garner was loving too, and he’s squelching that who put my man in the stocks? Because that was absolute insult to his power, to who he is. and so I think that when you finally say, good sir to the purpose, and he says, who put my man? It dawns on him that everything that he was dissuaded from about you putting him in the stocks must be true, because you’ve convinced him that Goneril is on the right side and that these are unsightly tricks. And you’re behaving, you’re old and you’re almost at death’s door, and you shouldn’t behave this way. He’s pushed finally back to, oh, my God, Kent must have been telling the truth. They both put that my man in the stocks. And then he says it three times after. Right, that makes sense, Randy.

Randall: yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Otherwise it feels like it hangs there.

Randall Duk Kim: Yeah. Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: But I think that’s the other thing. What we’ll add to it next week is more of looking at the text itself and the portfolio. Although I think you guys are already sort of jumped in and doing some wonderful, wonderful stuff. It’s great to see, to hear you, do it. And so I just want to get it to get richer. And the folio. The only thing about the folio, and we’ve said this last time, it’s basically to open a door, to open up, to interpret for you to interpret. See how it. What ideas you may get from it. It’s not meant to be. Hit that jump here, do that. It’s not that kind of a. A strict master. It’s basically to say, oh, gosh, I didn’t see that. That now I have something new to play, you know, so. So we’ll take a look at that next time. Any questions? Any. Nothing. You know, I have a question, but.

Jeanne Sakata: It doesn’t have to be answered now. But I. This time, it really made me wonder how affected I am by what Lear says to me, what my father says to me. And also in that other scene, you know, because these are really obviously horrific, harsh. I mean, I think I try to think even if my father. My own father, you know, I remember him being in the hospital and, you know, his mind sort of wandering and some, you know, at the end of his life. And. And yet, if he said these words to me, I’m still his daughter. I’m still the little girl inside that once revered my father, the king. And so I. I just. I mean, the. Some of these things he said, you know, this time, just hurtful. Yes, it hurt. It worked. If he wanted to destroy me emotionally Some of this came close. And then I felt myself saying, stealing myself and saying, no, I’m not going to let him get to me. M. So. So I think I sort of carried some of that emotion into the last scene. So when. When you say, be as innocent as possible, I kind of have to make that. Figure out how to get from that place to that innocence.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Right. And maybe the word maybe innocent is not what I’m, Maybe that’s not helpful. My. My point is that what the words are saying is it’s for his own good. But, it sounded to my ear that you were playing. I hope he suffers.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, okay.

Annie Occhiogrosso: So by being too strong with it, I see, you know, it does, the. You know, suit the word to the action. The action to the word. My ear hears one thing, and I’m seeing behavior that’s different. Almost became subtext. Rather than actually taking that text and saying, I don’t think it is innocent, but I think she’s using it to her. Her purpose. Because nobody wants that. Nobody wants to look like the villain in the piece. Yes, it’s a good.

01:50:00

Annie Occhiogrosso: That’s why you say, and in good time. You gave it because you’re old. You shouldn’t be ruling.

Lizzie King-Hall: Yeah.

Annie Occhiogrosso: You see, it’s Biden. Biden’s up against that right now. Yeah. Really? Do you want an old president? Do you really? Oh, and all of a sudden it’s about ageism. not about whether he’s right for Lear’s right for not right. You know? Do you see what I mean? So I. I think that I. I think that, you are totally affected by everything he said to you. But I don’t think it’s about love anymore. I think it’s about getting the job done and making sure that Gloucester is willing to follow you. I don’t. I think you have so many opportunities up ahead to do things that are out and out, overtly evil and harsh, that I think you want to work your way there. And I think it is a human trait to. To say to somebody, the reason that I’m. Is that I’m doing this because you’re not talking to Lear. I guess that’s my point. In this moment, you’re talking to Gloucester. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Does Nathan come back? Do we wanna.

Lizzie King-Hall: Can you lock the door?

Annie Occhiogrosso: Nathan, can you let us out?

Nathan Agin: Nathan can come back. Hold on one second.

Annie Occhiogrosso: I was in charge.

Nathan Agin: You’re in charge.

Annie Occhiogrosso: It’s. Oh, I am not. great to work with you guys, truly.

Jeanne Sakata: Oh, thank you so much.

Annie Occhiogrosso: This was Amazing, really.

Randall Duk Kim: Thank you. I’m going to have all my lines memorized next time.

Lizzie King-Hall: Oh, gee whiz. Okay.

Randall: Well, that’s not.

Nathan Agin: That’s not fair, right? Randy’s been. Been working on this play for 50 years, so that’s.

Randall Duk Kim: But I haven’t memorized that scene.

Jeanne Sakata: This be a permanent class, right? So soul nourishing, like you said, Randy. Food for the soul.

Lizzie King-Hall: You just, ah, feel all your. Like there’s just parts of your brain that, like. There’s just pleasure centers that light up. You know that it’s just so.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Because you guys are actors, we’ve taken the theater away from actors and placed it in the hand of directors. And that’s not right. That’s not right. They should be guiding. They should. Actors should be meant to dream, to be inspired. You have to live on that stage and hold that mirror up to humanity, to nature. You’ve got to become the thing itself, not somebody’s idea of what it should be. Because I’m the director. So, yes, it should be joyful. Yes, it should be filling. The theater can change lives, and we’re not allowing it to do that. We’ve reduced it to just a commodity. And as long as we do that, it won’t hold the power and glory that it has. I’m done. I’m sorry. I do get.

Jeanne Sakata: I actually love it. I love it. And.

Annie Occhiogrosso: Nathan, help.

Nathan Agin: No, no, no. You’re doing wonderfully on your own. There’s, nothing I could add. no, no, this was great. I had a couple of projects going on, but I was able to drop in from time to time and listen. I’ll probably listen, back to the replay for more of it. But no, I’m so thrilled that you guys all enjoyed this time and that. And I definitely enjoyed hearing, even if it wasn’t the scene, just the conversations around the scene and all the different things that. I mean, just one example, just hearing the sisters going, oh, wait a second. It’s not that we don’t like him. We’re still competing. It’s like, who wants him less? And just, you know, it’s something that’s simple, but can really illuminate the scene for an audience member and give you guys more choices of things to play of. Just like, no, I really don’t want him here. You know, that kind of stuff. So, no, it’s great. It’s wonderful. So thank you for your time and everything you guys bring to it.

Randall Duk Kim: Looking forward to next Tuesday.

Lizzie King-Hall: Have a good week, everyone.

Nathan Agin: Have a great week.

Jeanne Sakata: Thank you so much, everyone. Bye.

01:54:08